How to Survive Skyrocketing Meat Prices (Without Becoming a Vegetarian)

The headline on Drudge Report caught my attention yesterday, In large font, it screamed “Prices for Meat, Poultry, Fish and Eggs are at an All-Time High.”
To those of us who have been watching the alternative news, this is no surprise. Mac Slavo of SHTFplan wrote about it HERE.  Lizzie Bennett of Underground Medic warned us HERE.  Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog and The End of the American Dream has been shouting this from the rooftops for more than a year – HERE and HERE are two recent examples. Between the drought in California, the virus that killed off a bunch of baby pigs, and overall inflation because of an increase in fuel prices, every bite you put in your mouth is costing more this year, and those prices will continue to rise.
Does this mean that you have to become a vegetarian? Does it mean that you have to eschew healthy hormone-free meats and go with the toxic grocery store offerings?
Not at all.
My last trip to the grocery store here in the Pacific Northwestern US was absolutely appalling. I vowed to use a combination of strategies to help our meat purchases go further.

Buy in bulk locally

The absolute best way to buy meat is to purchase in bulk and to do so locally. We purchase direct from a local farmer who field-raises his animals and doesn’t use hormones and antibiotics.  You can buy a quarter or a half of a pig or cow, and you’ll pay on average a much lower price than you would if you bought the meat packaged separately over the course of the season. As well, you are locking in your meat price by purchasing it all at once. This way, you won’t be strongly  affected by the meat inflation until next season.
Here are a few tips for bulk purchases of meat

• Check out the farm from which the meat originates. You want animals that were not raised in cramped factory farmed conditions, not fed GMO feed, and not injected with growth hormones and antibiotics. If you are making a purchase like this go for the best quality you can find.
• If that is more meat than your family can use, or more money than you can spend right now, consider going in with another family and splitting the purchase.
• You need a deep freezer in order to make the most of such a large purchase.  
• I also like to can meat so that I am not as dependent on the electrical grid.  Look into canning entire roasts, meatballs, or chili.
• Have the poorer cuts turned into stew meat or ground meat.
• Slow cooking a lower quality cut can turn something tough into something that melts in your mouth.
• Learn more about buying meat free of hormones and antibiotics HERE.
  

Eat leftovers

Often when you purchase meat in bulk, you end up cooking large portions. You probably won’t open a Styrofoam tray of chicken breasts, but instead you’ll purchase a whole chicken.  You will be more likely to cook a stew or a roast. Have a plan for what you can do with those leftovers to extend them through another meal. Here are a few quick ideas:

• Make gravy – if you have a serving a meat too small to go around for all of your family members, consider making a gravy and serving it over mashed potatoes. Add some onion and mushrooms to the gravy to extend it even further.
• Make a soup or stew – this is another way to extend a serving that isn’t quite big enough to go around
• Mix it with beans and add Mexican seasoning to make burritos or to serve over rice.
• When you make a large roast, thinly slice the meat for sandwiches and salads throughout the work and school week.
• Cover leftover stew with pie crust or biscuit dough for a delicious potpie
  

You can find more ideas for repurposing leftovers HERE.

Don’t waste anything

Use up the things that most people throw away.  When preparing the meat, if you are cutting away some fat or bone, place it in a bowl and put it in the freezer. When you have enough like scraps of meat, it’s time to make broth from it.  You can make hearty broth from ham, turkey, chicken, beef, or pork – virtually any kind of meat.  Use the inedible parts and cook it down for hours to get a rich and delicious broth. You can then use this broth as a base for soup or to cook your rice in to add a hit of nutrition.
Here are directions on how to make and can poultry broth and ham broth.
Do you have such a tiny amount of leftovers that it won’t equal a full serving? Start a container in your freezer for those leftovers and create “leftover soup”.  Sometimes it’s fantastic, sometimes it isn’t so great, but those odds and ends can combine to make meals that I consider to be basically “freebies.”  We always have a large tupperware container in the freezer that contains little bits of vegetables or meat. Add a jar of homemade broth and a handful of rice, barley or pasta, and you’ve created “leftover soup.” It will be different every single time, based on your family’s leftovers.

Hunt and fish

This answer isn’t for everyone. Some folks prefer to forget that the meat on the styrofoam trays at the grocery store didn’t originate on those trays. Other’s have gotten locked in to a more narrow definition of “meat” , believing that the options are fish, pork, beef, and chicken.  However, if you aren’t bothered by the concept of hunting, there is an abundance of meat walking, swimming, and flying around.
You don’t have to hunt, yourself.  I’m fortunate to have some friends and neighbors who hunt. In exchange for some of the bounty, I’ve bartered my skills at canning things like venison chili or moose meatballs in spaghetti sauce.
If you fish, that can put an instant meal on the table.  Learning to quickly and efficiently clean fish is a great skill and can gently prepare you for butchering other types of meat.
Perhaps with the sharp uptick in meat prices, it’s time to brush up on these skills and learn to harvest what is naturally abundant in your area.

Any suggestions?

How do you combat the outrageous meat prices?  Share your ideas in the comments section below.

About the author:

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Daisy Luther is a freelance writer and editor.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca